Show the prospector and his burro if 11 you seem awful hard to handle today said the prospector to his burro and are as fickle and kittenish as a pretty girl with two or three fellows on her string for the past two or three hours I 1 have been trying to keep you on the trail headed for the tall peak we see in the distance and yet every time I 1 stop a moment to pick I 1 up a piece of float or to examine a stringer you stray from the path and are as hard to find as an ace in the middle of the pack you will not follow the way I 1 have marked out for you and this reminds me of the practice of the average mining man many of whom you will observe have about as much of an idea of what minin mining 11 really is as a burro has of making flap jacks and sugar syrup it stands to reason that it will take us a long time to arrive at our 0 destination if we do not follow the trail and it can well be said that the small mine owner will fail to make a producer out of his claim if he does not follow his ore you seem to have forgotten the chief object of the trip we are making ma kingg just as the prospector fails to realize the importance of his work when he spends his time in running long crosscut cross cut tunnels when in fact he should become intimately associated with the ore showing at the vein cropping never leaving it until he has demonstrated that it goes down at least feet until he has followed it into the mountain and until he has blocked out a sufficient quantity of milling and high grade stuff to substantiate his belief that in his prospect lie he has the making of a mine this he could accomplish in half the time it would take to run a long I 1 tunnel and at the same time it is more than likely that lie he could take out enough ore to defray a portion of his expenses and to keep a goodly supply of barley in the sack of his burro you sem a little interested now that I 1 have mentioned your favorite article of diet continued the prospector and want to know what difference it makes whether a mining man runs a tunnel in country rock or sinks on his vein which goes to show that once in a while you develop a transitory spark of intelligence from your limited supply of gray matter and before you lapse again into your usual state of imbecility I 1 will try and explain the difference between sensible and successful prospecting and the and wasteful expenditure of both time and money by some mining men who for many years have been clinging to the outskirts of a fortune but who have never secured a good handhold hand hold on the real thing thin owing to the fact that they never really understood the first elements of mining just as you with your great lung power can never become a patti through your ignorance of what constitutes real music some five years ago up in the cutthroat range I 1 met with a party of claim owners who has one of ane best surface showings I 1 have ever seen there were several parallel veins on the group on any one of which there could be found quartz that was fairly alive with the yellow metal and at one point especially in a low saddle two or three veins carrying excellent gold values seemed to converge the place was rather inaccessible but bore all of the earmarks of a mine one of the members of the party was anxious to sink on the saddle veins but was overruled by his partners who insisted on running a long crosscut tunnel claiming claiman that when the fissures were finally encountered that an easy and economical outlet would have been prepared for ore extraction and shipment besides an excellent tunnel site presented itself and it was possible that unknown ore bodies would be disclosed after running only a short distance so the tunnel was started for the first or feet the rock was easy to work then it became as hard as boiler plate and about this time some of the owners began to feel the effect of hard times and decided to draw out of the enterprise work was maintained however with the expectation of reaching the first of the parallel veins but this seemed to be as elusive as a california flea and had evidently changed its dip for it was not found where from surface indications it should have been by this time the ill advised but persist persistent claim holders were not only going short on rations and mine supplies but they were baggy at the knees as well and the seats of their pants had been patched time and time again with gunny sacks to make matters worse the panic came and when the owners of the little store in the valley had refused to extend their credit they were obliged to throw up the sponge as it were and discontinue operations in the same neighborhood an old and experienced prospector had been camping for months he had been over the group of claims many and many a time and he knew every inch of the ground he knew the ore much better than did the owners of the group and when they quit and when the claims reverted to the government through failure to perform annual assessment work ho he was the first man to put up his notices upon the abandoned property this man wanted no long iong tunnels in his and began work at once on the saddle veins for a month or more he took out from one to two tons of ore daily that avet averaged aged from 75 to to the ton in the yellow metal the best of this he packed on burros to the nearest railroad point thirty miles away and sent to the smelters shelters sm elters A little later he put in a little two stamp mill and was able to treat his lower grade material together with his first class as a sweetener he was now able to employ two or three miners and inside of six months had his shaft down to the foot level with drifts both ways on the vein for two or three hundred feet he also had a large tonnage of fine mill ore on the dump aal made frequent shipments of his first class to the smelters shelters sm elters about this time a field man for a large investment company happened along and was at once much interested in the proposition he made a reasonable offer to the prospector who as you must have noticed was no fool and this was accepted the prospector retiring with a good fat bank account to his credit the new owners taking hold with a vim which soon transformed the prospect into a big mine and a regular dividend payer 1 I want to tell you old long ears concluded the prospector it is a long road that has no turning but it must be followed if one really desires to reach his destination at on just as the prospector if he hopes to speedily transform his prospect into a producing mine must follow bollow his ore it pay to monkey with theo theories ries any more than it is a safe proposition for a stranger to tickle your heels with a straw and there you are and then some |